


Thawing

by Inwitari_Turelie



Series: Creeping Ice [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Avenger Loki, F/M, I feel I should warn for that, Issues, Loki has a a tendency to project, Miscommunication, Self-Esteem, plot holes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inwitari_Turelie/pseuds/Inwitari_Turelie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki thinks he's quite satisfied with life; his family love him and he has a role he knows how to fill.  Now though he go to Midgard and work with the Avengers.  For some reason they seem to think they're all friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tony Stark

Loki might have to live and work with these Avengers per his agreement with SHIELD but there is no clause in said agreement saying that he has to like them. Not that Loki particularly holds any dislike towards any members of the team. He just doesn’t see much need to befriend them past what is necessary to operate smoothly as a team. After all they are mortals and thus will die soon enough in the scheme of things. They also die rather _easily,_ Loki is not considored particularly strong on Asgard but here it is another story. Truly Fury has done well out of their deal. Loki doubts that the mortals would have been able to glean much more from the Tessaract than they already have and now in addition to their planet no longing being a beacon for the Mad Titan he has an Asgardian on his team. Sometimes he thinks the work they do is more suited to Thor but the team already have their blonde well-intentioned military leader quota filled and really Loki is a far more useful addition to their line-up this brother would be.

  
That the mortals have had the Tessarect on Midgard for so long and learned so little says much. However Loki is forced to admit though that if anyone on this planet were to have the intelligence to create anything more from the Tessarect it would be Stark. His Arc Reactor has enough (little as it is) in common with the Tessarect that Loki suspects that somewhere along the way of its production it was inspired by it. From a purely technical point of view not including the man on SHIELD's Tessarect  was a mistake. Taking a political view though Loki understands Fury’s motivations. Monarchies may no longer be the fashion in Midgard but his new teammate has power, money and charisma. He is a dangerous man. Sometimes Loki thinks Stark combines Thor’s best qualities with his own worst. A dangerous man indeed.

  
Yet, Stark also exhibits some of Thor’s less exemplary qualities. Without the help of his love the Lady Pepper his business would be much smaller. Though he has read all the files Loki does not quite understand why Stark chose to stop making weapons. In fact listening to the speeches Stark gives of his new-found desire to save the world, Loki is surprised Stark did not attempt to take it over. He thinks in Stark's position he might have done. However it is not Loki's place to question any of this. Nor will he question Lady Pepper who, though she approves of Loki and questions Stark herself, will defend Stark against any others. It’s almost amusing watching someone else in the position Loki has played to Thor for so long. Of course unlike himself and his brother she does not have centuries to get Stark into a state where he can rule alone although Loki feels she has something of an advantage in manipulation being Stark's lover.

  
For all that, maybe because of all that Stark is a useful and satisfactory teamate. The real problem with Stark is how he seems to have decided he’s Loki’s best friend. It’s not truly out of any interest in Loki himself of course, any more than any of the overtures of friendship made in Asgard because of his station were. Loki has seen how excited Stark gets when SHIELD moots the idea of trying the contact Dr Bruce Banner and his attempts to find the shape-shifting scientist first. He has seen the curiosity in Stark’s eyes when Loki works his seidr. Stark collects intelligent oddities and Loki is might be an oddity but he is not fond of being collected.

  
He believed he was but part of a collection for long enough. He has no desire for his misconception to become truth.

  
Loki does not believe the dismay in Stark’s eyes when Loki fails to reciprocate his overtures is wholly false. No doubt his inability to learn more of Loki’s seidr causes sincere disappointment. Were he in Stark’s position then certainly he would attempt to learn as much of another world as he can. It is a game Loki knows well. He has played it enough over the years with dipomats from other realms. It is not that no information can be exchanged for that would help none but it is a balancing act of making sure one gets back at least what one reveals.So he does accompany Stark to his labs of Research and Development even if he does not join in with his experiments and in return he drops hints every so often of his magic.

  
Loki assumes that Stark understands the game. It is only after Loki wakes from unconsciousness after a battle to be confronted by Lady Pepper that Loki realises that perhaps he has miscalculated. His mistake. Apparently Stark’s failure to become Loki’s new best friend has actually upset the man and he seems to think that if he knew more of how Loki’s magic works he could have prevented this injury.

  
Stark’s belief is of cause false . Loki knows exactly where the blame for his injury lies and it is not with his teammate.

  
As she speaks Loki mentally revaluates that perhaps Lady Pepper has more of Sif in her than he originally believed.

  
When he meet her eyes he realises he knows the expression on her face. He has seen it on his mother’s often enough. She is worried. For Stark, he assumes.

  
It seems that Stark’s life is not quite as perfect as Loki believes. Oh, Loki knows of Afghanistan but in Asgard the risk one runs when entering battle is understood. These people are mortals though and he supposes they have less time to forget. Another miscalculation. He is not sure that is the cause of what so worries Pepper. Both Stark and Pepper have seemed happy recently. Not a calm realationship but a happy one nonetheless. Still he realises that apart from herself and his childhood friend the soldier Loki does not know any other he would truly say were close to Tony.

  
Loki thinks back on his youth and though personally he doesn’t believe that friends are actually necessary he admits life is more enjoyable with other people you can rely on.

  
So, the next time Starks offers him a drink he accepts. His physicians might disapprove but while Loki may be of the Jotnar rather than the Aesir by blood he is still a god.

  
Apparently this is less of a barrier to Tony’s alcohol than he expects.

  
It also seems that troubled family relationships cross the species divide. Something Loki  should perhaps be aware of given his own nature. Loki has heard parts of Tony’s story on the records that JARVIS links him to but it different hearing the entirety of it from the man himself. Tony seems horrified by Loki’s story but Loki thinks that that is perhaps mostly the effect he has noted on mortals whenever he mentions the length of any span of time at play. He thinks it exaggerates the true effect of any tale he tells to them. Sometimes this is useful. Right now Loki thinks it is not.

  
As he listens to Tony’s story of the Father who was never there and never wished to be there he worries for the mortal. Truly Loki believes Tony has had the worse end of the bargain. Loki at least knows his family love him.


	2. Natasha Romanov

If Loki was to admit which Avenger he finds the easiest to get along with it would have to be Romanov. Oh, he likes Stark and discovering the man believed that he actually did want Loki’s friendship was gratifying. However not only does that friendship come with expectations Loki hasn’t quite figured out yet but for all his genius the man can be rather, well, grating sometimes. Loki is rather impressed Lady Pepper manages to stay in a relationship with him really. 

Romanov is easier. Here Loki won’t make mistakes, here he’s on much firmer ground. Technically he doesn’t trust Romanov. Or rather he trusts her to make the right decision for whatever her priority is that moment, whether it is her teammate or her mission or her planet, it’s simply that he knows that he won’t always be that priority. Although admittedly Loki probably is her priority rather a lot of the time now. Asgard is both Midgard’s first point of contact, its first ally in the universe and a alien civilisation with the advantage in intelligence on the other. Midgard can’t let anything happen to Loki because they don’t know how Asgard will respond. Yet at the same time any Midgardian should find out as much from him as they can. Romanov has been trained for both, little as he needs her protection.

In many ways he respects her, recognising the role she plays just as she does to him. In other ways however she actively impresses him. Loki spars with her, the Captain and Hawkeye often enough. Unlike Tony or Bruce these members of the Avengers need to practise their physical abilities before battle and perhaps more importantly, since Loki thinks some training would do those two good as it does him, they have the military discipline to practice. Captain Rogers has, it’s true, the best chance of beating him but though she lacks strength her skill is remarkable for a mortal. It is a pity truly that she was not born Asgardian, with their physiology and the centuries to hone her talents, she could have been one of the most deadly creatures of all of Yddgrasil rather than simply of Midgard. Even on this planet she is unusually small and slight and yet she holds her own against their enemies. 

Loki had hardly been introduced to the team when her archer had asked if Loki was going to have an issue with a woman fighting with them. The Einherjar their father had sent to make the initial contact had made some comment to a SHIELD scientist along the lines that of course he did not expect a woman like her to fight. This had apparently made it into SHIELD xenosociology as a warning of different expectations on Asgardian woman. Undeniably they are not exactly wrong. Still Loki had, undiplomatic as it might be, laughed and when pushed admitted that he had been taught much of the finer points of warfare by Sif, who was yes, a woman, and don’t say anything different on that to her. 

Loki thinks that she sought his company more after that. She’s quieter with him alone than she is with the others. Loki is quite sure which is the mask, certainly the silence, when it falls, say when polishing knives, is not uncomfortable. He’d like to think the talkative nature she shows with the Captain is the mask but perhaps the truth is neither is, or rather, both are. Conversation can sometimes be exhausting, especially if one did not indulge in it when young, something he thinks ,for reasons he’s not quite sure of, they have in common. This doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyable and it’s not wanted, just that sometimes it’s nice to have quiet and less to carefully present of oneself. Loki is glad to have found someone to have that with. He had not been sure if that would be the case on this planet. Humans with their short lives are always so busy and resultedly so noisy.

He thinks they all expect him to compare her to Sif. Tony has asked once or twice if that was the case with an undertone that Loki did not quite like. Romanov is nothing like Sif. Just as being warriors does not make Volstagg the clone of Thor, that they are both women who fight rather dangerously does not make Romanov and Sif the same. Sif is truly almost a female version of Thor, well, she has slightly more surety of people's opinions and therefore more sense perhaps. Still the fact remains Sif is the epitome of an Asgardian warrior, she is skilled certainly but she is also brute force and headlong attacks that smash their enemies beneath their weapons. Romanov is subtle manoeuvres and careful assessment that use the enemy's strength against them and strikes where they least expect. Instead she reminds him more of Hogun though she smiles easier than his grim friend.

They do talk sometimes. Their conversations are mixed. Sometimes they sound inconsequential and they both pretend that they are. Other times they are serious indeed. 

They had been watching her archer shoot once and she’d turned to look at him and unexpectedly told him to remember that Clint was an ally rather than a tool. Thrown but not without response Loki had asked why he should treat him differently to how their organisation did. She’d shrugged and simply said because Clint didn’t treat her like one before pausing and smiling and saying that she reminded SHIELD of that fact too before settling back down to watch. Loki had thought that was the end of their conversation but before they left she’d said that Clint didn’t think of Loki like that either. 

Loki goes back and re-reads the beginning of Romanov’s file. He looks at Hawkeye’s again. Then he enters Tony’s download of secure SHIELD files and reads their real records on Black Widow before and during the time she became Agent Romanov of SHIELD. It’s not unfair, the information is all there and she’d be disappointed in him if she didn’t. Besides Loki is sure his the particulars of his drunken conversation with Stark are not as private as he would wish.

The next morning he approaches Romanov and asks how she can be so sure, she meets his eyes and tells him the other one cares too much do so and Loki smiles though not completely without bitterness and takes her point though not without saying that the truth is that those who care about them do not think they do so.  
But for some reason he promises to try. Insofar as people like them can. 

They’re called away to situation almost straight away before they can really finish the conversation. Loki doesn’t think he fights differently. Not really.

But when they get back she asks him to call her Natasha. She smiles as she says it and tells him that "Lady Romanov" has somewhat unfortunate connotations but he understands the truth of her gesture.

Loki decides to get a knife forged for her next time he is in Svaltalfheim.


End file.
